An Interview with the Crimson Lotus
by AlSmash
Summary: Isamu Sato was just a journalist, a battlefield correspondent; a man dedicated to covering conflict in all its forms, to unveiling the truth about war. So what does he do when the last great war doesn't make any sense, when he can't find the truths he's built his career on seeking? He remembers the old proverb his mother once told him: He who is loved cannot truly be evil.
1. Chapter 1

My eyes snapped to the sound of an explosion, my frame lowering its center of gravity, a reflex that I had honed over the years. A necessary skill for the job I had done up until this point. But I relaxed when I realized that the explosion was just a firework going off.

Sighing, I settled myself, resisting the urge to curse out the dumb ass kid that was overzealous with his bottle rocket, not that it would do me any good, everyone was celebrating and having a merry time.

After all, it was the tenth anniversary of the day that the Demon Emperor had been slain.

Reaching up to my pocket, I stopped myself, realizing that my favorite edge killer was no longer there, a compromise I had made after the really nasty events in the Middle East. Sometimes seeing the worst of people can make the best out of yourself, but the horrors of the Badr Uprising were really one of those that you could just never get out of your head. Not for a war correspondent like myself, though, I guess war correspondent was an anachronism, we were now called conflict correspondents, as silly as that sounded.

Instead, I reached down into my pants pocket and pulled out my replacement fix, slapping it on my forearm and feeling the cool release of the patch. Sometimes, when you saw things, you just needed something to keep that edge from consuming you. For myself, nicotine was my ambrosia, that thing that took the edge off and kept the really nasty things from cropping up, but provided a level of clarity.

It's pretty bad for a twenty-five year old such as myself to be such a mess. But then again, I was addicted to the drums of warfare, maybe that was what drew me to it, or maybe it was the baptism of fire I had when I was only fourteen that caused me to be addicted to it. Hell, not even my shrink knew, not that I liked sharing with that corporate owned pissant.

But that aside, the pay was good, the perks were awesome, and I got all the time I wanted to dick around when there wasn't a battlefield to run to. It wasn't until after the first couple of years I didn't realize how boring it really could be, and that got my mind drifting. Drifting back to things that had bothered me when I was younger, things that didn't make sense.

Things that I wanted to make sense.

That was why I was here now, instead of partying my ass off like the rest of the world I was looking for answers, looking to fill the gaps in my knowledge. Seeking that one answer that had nagged at me for almost the last decade on those cold lonely nights when I had time to think.

My eyes snapped up as the source of my answers slid into view. She was trying her best to blend in, clothing different and hair down, but when you had seen her several times both on and off the field, or even seen the eyes, you could never forget her. Everyone had always claimed that Princess Cornelia was the Goddess of Victory, but if anything could describe his subject, it was that she was the Goddess of War. Everything was calm and measured as she slowly slid through the various children and adults that were busy running around the monument showing exactly where the Demon had fallen, a giant monolith that was like a figurative middle finger transmitted into the afterlife to the very man who had fallen here.

I watched as she only spent a few moments to surreptitiously leave a small bouquet of flowers. I knew exactly the meaning of these flowers, I had seen them too many times in my years in the field. They were all about longing, love, and gratefulness. They were the kind of things left for a loved one who had fallen.

Making sure she hadn't made me, I slowly moved forward to follow her, my eyes noting that the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, which meant that the real festivities would begin soon. The fireworks would go on for hours soon, the drinking would be non-stop and hectic, and everyone would party over the death of one man. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so macabre, this one day was more popular in the world than any single holiday, it was as if everyone WANTED to remember how they somehow survived that man.

I followed her now, again making sure that she hadn't made me, the streets were getting more and more busy, as people came out of their homes to ready for the fireworks that were going to start firing off any minute, fireworks that would all but cause any veteran who had really been impacted by the wars to curl up into a ball and weep like a child.

She slipped into a Pizza Hut now, why, I had no fucking idea, but I wasn't going to lose her, so I waited, keeping my eyes on her as she seemed to wait at the counter for only a few moments before she was given a box with whatever it was, more than likely pizza. Then she was out of the store again and the hunt was back on.

That's when the fireworks started.

It took every effort of mine to tune out the cacophony of explosions that began to just reverberate among the buildings as it seemed every single firework known to man exploded in an orgy of gunpowder, magnesium, and whatever the hell was packed into the deadly concoctions to make them colorful and explosive.

That was when I realized I lost her, that moment of hesitation as they started, that moment when I had to have a fight with my brain over the fact that we weren't in a war zone was all that my target needed to disappear.

I knew I should stop, but I knew where she was going next, so I immediately began peeling for where her apartment was, at least, it was an apartment listed under an alias, I had done enough homework on my target to know how she acted and how she worked, I wouldn't be a good journalist if I didn't.

So I quickly moved through the crowds and headed for a quieter part of the city, an upper-scale part that was walled off, I knew she stayed her, I knew-

That was when I felt it more than I FELT it, my senses on overdrive as I whirled around to see my target behind me, pizza box in hand, but those eyes, those eyes like a pair of oceans scanning me with their guard up, she knew I had been following her, there was no doubt about it.

"Who are you," she demanded, or more like commanded, she knew exactly what it was to do that.

My throat parched, suddenly I really didn't know what I was doing, it was my intention to be the ambusher, not the ambushee, or maybe it was the damn smoke that was cloying in the air, ugh, someone needed to have their head examined, did they even know the kind of respiratory shit that could result-

"I asked, who are you," she demanded, this time any source of warmth was gone, instead it was replaced by the cold steel of a solder deliberating the threat before them….and deciding exactly how to end it.

I saw it now, the glint of battle-steel, shit, she was actually armed with her ceremonial sword underneath, how the hell she managed it was any guess, but then again, I hadn't been scanning for that, I had been more focused on keeping a bead on her and making sure everything jived with my analysis of her. Still, the lady had asked a question, I would be in remiss if I didn't answer.

"Isamu Sato, Tokyo Sun," I said firmly, knowing that going in strong was the only way to avoid meeting a messy end with my subject.

"And why have you been stalking me the last half an hour?"

Shit, she had made me, I could only guess at how she did it, I had done everything right, I hadn't gotten to where I was by being sloppy, how had she noticed me?

Now everything was changing, nothing was working as I had planned it, which meant I was running closer and closer to the razor's edge, my mind groaned as it realized that inadvertently shitty pun.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions about the Emperor," I decided to forge ahead, I needed to keep her from doing anything stupid until I was ready, the conditions needed to be met.

"You and about the rest of the world," she muttered irritably, hand now settled on the hilt of the sword, a katana I realized, "I have told all of you time and again, I'm not interested in an interview."

Better just get straight to the point, this was my only opportunity. I glanced around a few times just to make sure no one was around.

"I'm not interested in the Demon Emperor per se," I finally said, here was what I was waiting for, the culmination of the last decade of my life, the questioned that haunted me since that random thought had rattled in my mind so long ago, "I'm interested in the truth, the truth of the plan that the Emperor conspired with the current Zero, Suzaku Kururugi, to execute. I want to know the truth of this manufactured peace."

* * *

A/N: And there we have it, the beginning of a new idea that I got inspired by **anonymous moose's **_**"Reminiscence"**_**, **it's a good Mass Effect fic that I have really enjoyed so far and felt that maybe its theme deserved a treatment for the Code Geass world.

Thanks to **Magery** for the assist**.**

Just for future reference, this fic will be a tertiary fic, which means I will update it when I update it, as my current focus are on my two primary fics, but that doesn't mean this won't get updated hopefully every month or two. Until then, enjoy the fruits.


	2. Chapter 2

_"I'm not interested in the Demon Emperor per se," I finally said, here was what I was waiting for, the culmination of the last decade of my life, the questioned that haunted me since that random thought had rattled in my mind so long ago, "I'm interested in the truth, the truth of the plan that the Emperor conspired with the current Zero, Suzaku Kururugi, to execute. I want to know the truth of this manufactured peace."_

I thought I had good reflexes. I had to; I'd lived on the battlefield my entire life, lived through the Liberation Wars, the Demon's Reign and covered half a hundred other conflicts around the globe. But there's a difference between reacting and living, and it took Kallen Kozuki's sword to my neck to understand what it meant to be _born_ to fight. By the time I was aware she'd drawn it, the cool metal already rested against my jugular.

I'd been in a lot of near-death situations; pretty obvious, considering what my job was. But I don't think I'd ever been closer to the void than I felt right then, staring into those eyes. It was like looking into the ocean, vast and deep and completely merciless. And all of that paled into insignificance compared to the tone of her voice.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't leave your headless corpse here in the street."

Normally, I might have made a joke, perhaps mentioned something about how being arrested for murder probably wasn't a good idea, but two things stopped me. One of them was the fact she probably wouldn't even be charged; she could just claim self-defence, claim I was stalking her and harassing her and I tried to attack her, and considering who she was they'd probably give her a medal afterwards.

The other was the look in her eyes. I'd seen it on the battlefield before; it was the sort of look that told you that person would die for their cause without a seconds thought. That they'd go through hell and back twice over and not give a damn because it was the right thing to do. It was the sort of look that told me exactly how close that sword was to slitting my throat. So I answered with the only thing I really could, the only weapon I'd ever really possessed.

"The truth. Somebody should know it."

She raised an eyebrow, sword never wavering, and I realised she probably didn't understand what I meant. Or worse, she understood what I meant and she just didn't care – she'd lived with the pain for long enough she didn't know how to make it go away. Then she seemed to make some sort of decision, and by the time I'd registered the blade lifting from my neck it was already sheathed and she was gesturing to me over her shoulder.

"Follow me," she said, and I did.

We strolled through the crowds, reaching the door of her apartment. It was already open, door swinging in the breeze, but she didn't seem surprised at all, like she'd been expecting it. I closed the door behind us; the lights were already on, and I could hear a few people talking softly in another room. More than a few, actually.

I followed Kallen as she moved through the house, but she paused just before she entered a doorway and held me back; the knife in her hand appeared just as suddenly as the pressure on my neck.

"You will stay there, with your eyes closed and you will not move until I come back. If I even _suspect_ you have twitched a muscle, I will kill you and dump your body somewhere in the streets where nobody will ever find you. Do not test me on this, Sato, because you _will_ fail."

I would have nodded in agreement, and perhaps swallowed, except she still hadn't removed the knife. A few seconds later—enough time to make me start to sweat involuntarily—she withdrew, and passed through the doorway, knife vanishing so quickly that if it wasn't for the slight nick she'd left in my throat I would have sworn she'd never had it.

There was a low murmur of discussion from the other room; from the sounds of it, it was quickly descending into an argument. A few minutes later, Kallen returned, a strange smile on her face.

"Congratulations. We've voted not to kill you. Are you coming?"

Swallowing, I nodded. The moment I passed through the doorway, I froze. I didn't quite know what I was expecting, but what I saw wasn't really anything like it.

Crowded around a small table in Kallen Kozuki's living room was Lord Jeremiah Gottwald, a woman who could only be Sayoko Shinozaki, General Todoh—_the _General Todoh—one figure who nowadays was only ever referred to as the Demon Witch, and…

"No. Fucking. _Way._"

Suzaku Kururugi sat at the opposite end of the table, clad in Zero's outfit sans the helmet. He didn't smile, but from the laptop next to him I heard a giggle, and it was only then I realised there was somebody's face on the screen. Three seconds later, I realised who I'd just—figuratively—sworn in front of. Empress Nunnally vi Britannia.

I think that moment, standing in front of that table, might have been the first time in my life I was literally lost for words. Fortunately for me, those around me weren't, because Lord Jeremiah gestured to the empty chair between he and Kallen. Halfway through the movement, he froze, and every single person in the room turned to look at the Crimson Lotus.

It took me a couple of seconds to comprehend why, but then I realised exactly who would have been sitting on either side of the chair, how it was located at what would have been the head of the table, how it glistened in the reflected light like it had been cleaned thoroughly every single day. And I understood exactly what that chair signified.

"It's all right. I'm happy to stand," I said, pointedly looking at Kallen and then the chair; she seemed almost frozen in space, eyes looking everywhere but at that empty space. I leaned back against the wall, wondering how I managed to be so casual when by all rights I probably should have fainted in shock. For goodness' sake, I was staring straight at the greatest conspiracy in _history_. I knew who the new Zero _was._ And yet there I was, acting like nothing had changed.

Suddenly, a clock in some unseen part of Kallen's house started to strike midnight, and I realised the Day the Demon Died had finally passed. As the last strike rung away, I noticed the tension slipping off everyone in the room as they reached for glasses on the table. There wasn't one for me, but apart from the obvious fact that I was a surprise guest, by the looks of things they were preparing some sort of toast, and I didn't know anywhere near enough to make mine meaningful.

Lord Jeremiah spoke first, raising his glass in the air like the salute I realised it was.

"My Lord who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."

He tossed back the drink with a single gulp; it surprised me for a second before I realised he was using it to hide something that might just be tears. I recognized the start of his toast; it came from some old religion, one Britannia had tossed away and the Empress—the very same Empress I had sworn in front of—had brought back along with everything else. I was not in the least bit surprised by that; everyone knew his devotion to the vi Britannia line was probably one step _above_ religious.

The next to speak was Sayoko Shinozaki; her voice was soft and quiet.

"Thank you, Master."

Her toast was… not a lot shorter than I thought it would be, actually. From the stories I'd heard of her, it made complete sense. She didn't waste words, or anything for that matter; what she said, what she did, was what she thought needed to be done.

After her came Todoh, a man who I did not expect to see anywhere near the company he was keeping right now.

"Lelouch. You might have been a demon. You might have manipulated me and everyone I knew a thousand times over. But deep down, you were still that little boy trying to protect his sister."

Well, now that was something. Todoh had known Lelouch as a child? It was funny, when I thought about it; he'd ruled the entire world and then been killed before he was nineteen. In another life, most people probably still would have thought him a child.

Next up was the Demon Witch, which reminded me that I should really learn what her real name was. I'm sure somebody around here knew.

"Lelouch. You were a hopeless contractor, and you never bought me enough pizza."

I didn't even pretend to understand that; after the sad poignancy of the previous toasts, that was not what I'd been expecting at all. But looking around the table, I didn't notice anyone reacting as if she'd said something unusual. In fact, Kallen reached across the table and took her hand for a second before releasing it.

If I hadn't been watching her closely, I might have missed it, but for a second I thought the green-haired woman's face flashed into a smile after Kallen released her hand. What struck me the most about it was that the smile was _wrong_. It was a pained smile, like she was dealing with an uncomfortable memory. Normally, I'd have expected that, considering who she was rumoured to be, but she hadn't been smiling as she'd toasted. She'd only smiled _after_ Kallen had tried to comfort her.

Dismissing my thoughts, I turned to watch Kururugi. This was going to be interesting.

"Lelouch. I hated you as only a brother could."

Well, that was not at all what I was expecting, but I got the sense there was a _lot_ going unsaid. A lot that I'd probably never understand. The Empress spoke next, but she didn't raise a glass like everyone else was. Instead, she was folding a single black paper crane in her hands.

"Onii-san… I'm sorry. I always will be."

She started crying; much the same with Kururugi's toast, I somehow understood the words meant everything and nothing at the same time. For every word she'd said, there were a hundred she wanted to say but couldn't.

The only person who hadn't spoken was Kallen. And by the look in her eyes, and the way the glass shook in her hand, she probably wasn't going to say much at all. As she raised the glass ever so slowly, two words slipped out, like the dying gasp of the soldier on the battlefield. She wasn't crying, but I thought that might only have been because she'd run out of tears a long time ago.

"Lelouch… _why_?"

I wasn't looking at anyone but Kallen, so I missed the flash of pain in the golden eyes across the table.

Almost as if her toast was some sort of signal, everyone stood at once; well, everyone but the 'Demon Witch', who lazily reached across the table to grab another slice of the pizza Kallen must have brought in. One by one they said their goodbyes and slowly filed out the door; I briefly wondered how Kururugi was supposed to get to wherever he was going without being discovered, but then I realised these meetings had probably been going on ever since the Demon Emperor had effectively killed himself, and in that time he hadn't been caught once.

Kallen was still sitting there in silence as the other woman finished the pizza; once she'd eaten the last slice, she stood up and sauntered with an easy grace out the door, pausing only to whisper something in my ear as I leaned against the door frame.

"Don't hurt her." She didn't add a single threat, or even raise her voice above the cool monotone I'd heard before, but somehow her words chilled me to the bone. For all the rumours that she was nothing more than the Emperor's eye-candy, she sounded very, very old, and very, very dangerous.

I stood there in silence for about half an hour after she'd left, until Kallen raised her head. When she saw me, she looked vaguely surprised, like she didn't expect me to be there but didn't particularly care if I was. Then she shook her head one, twice, three times before seeming to return to the real world.

"What do you want with me?" she asked with a soft, quiet regret.

"An interview. I think the world should know the truth," I answered.

She sat in silence for what seemed like years, and in my mind I thought that perhaps that's exactly what she was thinking about. I was so lost in the sadness that seemed to roll off her in waves that I almost missed her answer.

"Okay."

I turned and left, sensing the dismissal. I'd studied her habits enough to know she didn't leave the house at all the day after she left the flowers, so I felt safe enough to simply come back some time the next day, once I'd had time to prepare some initial questions. As I passed through the door, turning to close it behind me, I swore I saw a flash of purple on the other side of the street.

* * *

I know I told you that I'd be updating this at random, irregular intervals, but it turns out **Magery** is a lazy bastard only when it comes to his _own_ stories. I think he tossed this out in about an hour and a half. I hope you enjoy it; now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to berate him into writing for some of _his_ work rather than trying to steal all the credit for mine.


	3. Chapter 3

I didn't sleep well that night, too much running through my head, all the questions I could ask, all the answers I could get. I was like a child awaiting my birthday gifts but I had to get through the day first before I could open them.

So instead I simply chose to stand on my balcony, nursing a bottle bottle of Britannian ale as I watched the city glow in the night. I didn't know when I finally fell asleep, but I found myself waking up in my chair, bottle of beer three-quarters consumed. I knew I should be angry wasting money like that but I really didn't care at this point, I was sitting on a story that would change the world, I could afford a few lapses. I could almost hear my mother screaming at me for that.

After I took my shower and shave I looked over my tools of the trade and wondered exactly what I would need. I was a thorough kind of guy, the first couple war zones taught me to always have as many contingencies as humanly possible.

Deciding that I needed my laptop if I was going to type what was said but also video record this interview. Still, even with that I geabbed my trusty old recorder, it was something that had been with me since my first job, always dependable and overlooked, it was an 'ancient' thing in comparison of all of the tech out there available to reporters.

Satisfied with my selection, I grabbed a clutch of memory sticks and my backpack, also a relic of my first days in the job and carefully packed it up and then locked up my pad and left.

It took a half an hour to reach Kallen's apartment, even with it being a weekend and the day after the largest celebratory day in mankind's history, it was just like Tokyo, thrumming with the life and vibrancy of a major metropolitarian area, Britannians, Japanese, and so many other people casually went through their daily routines like nothing had changed.

I wonder how many of them remember how not even a generation ago this place had the largest ghetto in Britannian and had been destroyed by FLEIJA. I doubted many of them remembered, or even cared. War was over in Japan, it was peace, peace, peace.

I came to my objective, glancing at my watch and noted it was almost ten in the morning, plenty of time to wake up and get ready.

I reached to knock on the door only for it to open, staying my hand.

She looked like she had slept about as well as I had as she motioned me inside. It took me a few moments as I followed to settle the clash of imagery before me.

Ever since her acceptance of the status of Britannia's Knight of One eight years ago there had never really been a time in which she was outside of her uniform. So to see her in faded jeans and a t-shirt was truly a spectacle. Though she was wearing her sidearm in an underarm holster, her trusty Nanbu that she had used during the Rebellions. I found it slightly curious that she had it on her, but then again, she had made a lot of enemies over the years, rather appropriate for someone who almost everyone referred to as Britannia's Red Flash.

I wondered if my colleagues realized the irony of that title.

She didn't offer me a seat as she sat down on a couch, I instead took one and noticed an open box laying on the table.

"Sato. It took me a bit of time to figure out where I heard your name," she said, "you were at Badr."

I nodded, Badr really didn't need any further discussion, it would have been nice if it never had happened.

"Usually when you deal with press you have to coddle them, not often you see them actually reporting on the battlefield and fighting at the same time. You won an erikson for that, didn't you?"

"Yes," I simply replied, one of two over the years. The Erikson was an award given to members of the media for reporting that was considered particurly huge or well-reported. The Badr Uprising had made me a bit of a minor celebrity on the net and among my peers.

But I knew what she was trying to do, I had seen it innumerable times, the attempt to personalize someone so you could talk about something that might be complicated or difficult.

"Since you are a journalist, you understand that there will need to be some ground rules here, right?"

I gave a reassuring smile, "of course."

"Good, then I want all of your wireless connecting devices in that box."

I hesitated. She wanted my laptop and my phone in that box? What was she getting at it. I was going to protest but then I saw in her eyes that no discussion would be allowed.

Thankful I had brought my recorder I opened my backpack and placed my laptop into it, then retrieved my phone and placed it in.

"What's that," she demanded and my eyes eyes followed her to my recorder.

"It's a voice recorder, no it doesn't have any wireless capabilities," she seemed to relax before she put a lid over the box and tapped a few buttons, causing it to beep.

"Now that that is out of the way, here are the rules..."

"Excuse me," I asked, I really wanted to know why she was paranoid about wireless devices, "but could you explain to me all of that?"

A set jaw and a flash of anger in her features was a warning that I was hazarding into dangerous territory.

"Is that thing off," she asked, more like growled.

"Yea."

"Then this is off the record, got it?"

I could only nod.

"There's a reason Japan has been problem free the last decade," the Knight of One started, "and it's not because of any glorious Japanese superiority," she spat that last part like a bitter fruit, "the Prime Minister has a digital surveillance program in place that taps into all commercial wireless devices. It wss actually an old OSI project called Stellar Wind before the Empress shut it down. The Prime Minister's wife took a copy of it before it was shut down and now Cabinet Intelligence runs it here under the program name Minekaze."

I was floored by this, it was unbelievable, Prime Minister Kaname Ohgi was actually spying on us, his own people?! But even as trued to grapple with this information, I noted how bitter and angry her tone was in regards to the Prime Minister, as far as I was aware, the two had an amicable relationship...

"You won't talk about this with anyone, you understand," she continued, "we hope to get the program decommissioned after this election.

Ahh, Kaguya Sumeragi's debut political run, though really it wasn't a debut if you knew her history, she was right now in a one-sided battle with Ohgi for the office, with Ohgi on the receiving end of a likely landslide.

"I'll keep it to myself then. I am doing this interview under one condition and I'm going to make this quite clear with you, if you want to know the truth about Zero Requiem, then you need to understand Lelouch. This isn't going to be an interview you can take some snippets from and write a story, this is a testament. I am going to tell you everything I know of him and experienced with him. If we are going to do this interview, Isamu Sato, I want you to write everything, which means you will also interview everyone involved with Lelouch. If you can agree with that, then we can go over the rules."

I nodded, there was no going back, not after last night, I wanted to know, the world had to know.

"Right then, you will sit, write and record, in between my stories you can ask questions, no in between. If I choose not to answer some of your questions, then that is final, if I want a break, we take a break. Do I make myself clear?"

Again, I nodded, what else was there to do.

She then settled back, adjusting herself for the pistol's presence, a far off look now replacing the severe expression she had before.

I took that moment to reach over and activated my recorder, before pulling out a small pad and pen, leaning back in my own chair.

"Let me begin I guess with the first time I met him…"

* * *

A/N: And there we have it. One of those moments when I got a surge of inspiration and push a new chapter out. Now we get into the meat of the story.

Like to hear your thoughts.


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